Cross: “I’ll Miss Matt Desperately.”

Hide and The Rings of Akhaten writer Neil Cross says he will miss the departing Matt Smith desperately.

The Luther creator told Stuff.NZ that when he met Matt during the filming of one of his episodes, he wasn’t entirely convinced that Matt was not the Doctor in real life:

”Matt Smith is a great Doctor, maybe the greatest Doctor ever . . . because he is the Doctor. Hearts and soul. I’ll miss him desperately. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

Initially, the screenwriter, who lives in New Zealand, was sceptical about Matt’s ability to build on the success of the departed Tenth Doctor, David Tennant:

“When he came into our lives as the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith had some very big Gallifreyan Chuck Taylors to fill. I watched his first episode with sweating palms and crossed fingers: hoping against hope that it would all be okay.

It was more than okay.

Within about ten seconds, I was smiling with relief. He had me at fish fingers and custard; he had us all at fish fingers and custard. By the end of that first episode, The Eleventh Hour, I was punching the air with tears in my eyes.”

Fans of Doctor Who, Spooks, Luther and Cross’s other work can join him at the Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall, on Saturday June 29th at 7pm where he’ll be sharing his thoughts on writing, collaborating with Guillermo Del Toro, his time as lead writer on BBC spy drama Spooks and creating cracking crime drama Luther.

Everyone has a favourite Doctor and mine - just for his honesty, his fairness and his ability to not notice the Master's awful, awful disguises/anagrams (Sir Gilles Estram!?!) - has to be the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. The stories didn’t serve him as well as his acting served those stories.